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UNIVERSITIES AUSTRALIA INDIGENOUS STRATEGY

FIRST ANNUAL REPORT

February 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

OVERVIEW

The UA Indigenous Strategy 2017-20 (the UA strategy) is a sector-wide initiative. It brings all member universities together to achieve common goals to advance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation and success in higher education.

Through the UA strategy, our 39 member universities committed to make further gains in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation, retention and success in universities. The formal adoption of the strategy by the UA Plenary in February 2017 was the vehicle for this express commitment by each university and its leadership.

The actions pledged under the strategy seek to:

improve enrolments and performance in students, academics/researchers and staff;

increase the engagement of non-Indigenous people with Indigenous knowledge, culture and educational approaches; and

improve the university environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

UA, as the sector’s peak body, also committed to actions to support universities advance Indigenous higher education, including seeking annual feedback from universities on their progress towards meeting the commitments made under the strategy, and releasing a de-identified report of findings.

This is the first annual report following the launch of the UA Strategy in March 2017. In 2018, UA requested all members complete and submit an open-ended and qualitative survey, intended to collect a base-line level of information to benchmark future work. All 39 members completed the survey although future years present an opportunity to achieve greater efficiencies in this information-sharing process for both universities and UA.